Cybergrass Bluegrass Music News: Mark O'Connor's New Violin Method Uses America's Classical And Folk Music

BMNN wrote: on Nov. 10, 2009:
On November 16th, multiple-Grammy-winning composer and violinist Mark O'Connor will realize a long-held dream: Books I and II of the O'Connor Violin Method will be published. While touring the United States and composing orchestral and chamber music, O'Connor has educated thousands of young musicians at his summer string camps and at such notable institutions as UCLA's Herb Alpert School of Music, Curtis Institute of Music and Harvard, always focusing on what he calls "America's classical music."

The O'Connor Method includes some of the great folk songs, fiddle tunes and classic themes that have endured the country's 400-year-old history of violin playing, representing all the Americas - Mexico, Canada and every region of the United States - and musical styles including classical, folk, Latin, jazz, rock and ragtime. O'Connor has chosen and arranged material that will help create the future classical violinist, folk fiddler, jazz musician - or all three.

Forty violin educators from around the U.S. attended the first teacher training at O'Connor's New York String Camp this past summer. O'Connor just completed an O'Connor Violin Method Seminar at the University of Kentucky as part of an effort to bring the Method to colleges and universities nationwide. His next stop is Boston's Berklee College of Music in December. See below for the full 2009/2010 O'Connor Violin Method Seminar schedule.

"Getting kids to fall in love with learning to play music is the great concern," O'Connor told the New Yorker recently. To do that, he's included personal favorites such as 11 variations on "Boil 'em Cabbage Down," an African American hoedown that was the first piece he ever learned to play on the violin. The 58 pieces in the two volumes include folk melodies such as "Amazing Grace," "Cielito Lindo" and "Buffalo Gals," and American Classical tunes such as Copland's "Hoedown," two themes from Dvorak's New World Symphony, and O'Connor's own "Appalachia Waltz."

The books contain guidance from O'Connor and short essays about topics including famous American fiddlers such as Thomas Jefferson and Davy Crockett, the history of Gypsies and Mariachi, and dances such as the minuet, the jig and the cakewalk. They also include the helpful "Fiddle Boy," who gives reassuring, kid-friendly advice.

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